COMMUNITY
CULTURE
THE PRACTICE OF LIVING
Quote from the article:
"Direct experience comes from nature and man interacting with each other. In this interaction, human energy gathers, is released, dammed up, frustrated and victorious. There are rhythmic beats of want and fulfillment, pulses of doing and being withheld from doing."
This quote explains how experience is essential to our creative practice. Experience with our environment and other human beings makes our work vital and practical to the world.
This quote pertains to how I think of my creative practice through community arts. As a community arts major, I have learned that my work is produced by the community that I am working with. There is no question of what can be produced by 'the self' but by 'the whole.' Before working with a community, I must investigate their culture and history.
As a community artist, my goal is to inspire and teach the community. Therefore, the experience and interaction with others is art itself. The art lives though the connectivity of learning and teaching among the community.
FOOD AS A COMMUNITY ART
A human being (like many other living beings), food is the essential source of survival. When I think of a man interacting with nature, I think of man satisfying his stomach. From a single dish, we can learn the history, culture, and place of origin of that particular dish. Food and community can be art through the experience of taste, learning, and teaching.
Parina,
ReplyDeleteJust as we were talking about in the library about food. You can learn so much about a culture from food. You can also learn so much about the environment that they live in through food. Obviously cultures that live around water have more seafood in their diets. Cultures that live around agriculture live with more mammal meats such as cows and pigs. There are even differences between western and eastern foods, for instance how in Korea they can eat live squid on sticks, but in the United States that almost seems toxic! Then in the US we eat hamburgers which to eastern cultures, as disgusting. Then with traditional cuisines from different cultures it reflects the environment such as when certain grains can only grow in certain areas of the world, and beliefs of the culture influenced by religion of other beliefs.
Therefore food is an art that reflects diversity amongst the human race.
Parina
ReplyDeleteI am fascinated with how you apply the readings to your community work. Just as you seek to "inspire and teach community", I see that you recognize that YOUR experience in community brings "vitality" to your artistic practice. It is iterative. I think that herein, lies a real understanding to the idea of multicultural education and engagement. It sems to me there is listening, observing, responding, doing, observing again, reflecting and re-understanding art-object, self and community. community and multi-culturalism as well as self as artists are constantly becoming, and it is the understanding of and response to that where it seems to me real multiculturalism generates.
it is so interesting to look at food as a method of community arts. different cultural food is something everyone can appreciate, regardless on their judgments of the culture. it could be used as a powerful tool for community arts.
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